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Speaker 1: You probably know President Trump's personal lawyer, j Suckalo. He

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Speaker 1: Two weeks ago, the Washington d C Attorney went on

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Speaker 1: TV and refused to rule out the possibility that the

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Speaker 1: president would fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Last Sunday, Secalo

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Speaker 1: is back. He appeared on four Sunday talk shows denying

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Speaker 1: that the president is under investigation, a direct contradiction of

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Speaker 1: Trump's Twitter post saying I am being investigated. So who

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Speaker 1: is this lawyer? And better yet, why is he on

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Speaker 1: Trump's legal team? Here to answer that question is Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: business Week editor Paul Barrett, who has written about him

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Speaker 1: in an article Paul, he has an unusual background, tell

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Speaker 1: us about it, very unusual. He grew up in a

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Speaker 1: Jewish family, UH, went to a Baptist college. UM got

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Speaker 1: involved with Jews for Jesus, and in the late nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighties became UM probably the most prominent Supreme Court advocate

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Speaker 1: for the Christian right period UH and for the next UH.

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Speaker 1: A couple of decades, he was involved in some dozen

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court cases, several of them quite important. He also

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Speaker 1: represented anti abortion groups and made quite a name for

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Speaker 1: himself in Washington. In more recent years, He's appeared on

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Speaker 1: Fox News as a legal analyst quite a bit. He

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Speaker 1: has a syndicated radio show. But the one thing that

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Speaker 1: he's not is a white collar defense lawyer, which is

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Speaker 1: what one would think President Trump needs at this moment. Exactly.

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Speaker 1: No tell us about how after filing for bankruptcy protection,

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Speaker 1: he switched the focus of his law practice and his

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Speaker 1: running of these interlocking Christian nonprofits. Sure well, out of

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Speaker 1: law school, he became a tax lawyer, was very successful

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Speaker 1: for a few years, then ran into financial difficulties, ended

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Speaker 1: up filing for bankruptcy and the Christian related law practice

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Speaker 1: was kind of what rescued him from that financial failure.

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Speaker 1: Early in his career, Um, he overtime involved with a

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Speaker 1: couple of different uh nonprofits that are related to to

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Speaker 1: one another. And these are organizations that raise a good

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Speaker 1: deal of money. He's the chief counsel of one, president

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Speaker 1: of the other. And uh this is uh you know

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Speaker 1: how he participates in the mixed life of religion and

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Speaker 1: commerce law practice all kind of bound together. Do we

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Speaker 1: know how Trump came to hire him because the other

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Speaker 1: lawyers were sort of familiar with them. Yeah, Uh, I

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Speaker 1: was unable to get the answer to that question, although

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Speaker 1: believe me, I believe you, I asked, UM, and I

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Speaker 1: think the best guess is that Trump was probably familiar

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Speaker 1: with him more in his Fox TV h identity, because

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Speaker 1: Trump is of course a big cable television watcher, a

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Speaker 1: big fan of of Fox, and also because in his

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Speaker 1: radio show and on his websites and elsewhere, Seculo has

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Speaker 1: been very supportive of Trump, and Trump likes people who

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Speaker 1: are loyal to him. So does it seem to you

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Speaker 1: as if he is the spokesperson for the legal team.

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Speaker 1: I think it's most likely that that will be his

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Speaker 1: most prominent or obvious role. He's a very accomplished appellate

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Speaker 1: lawyer UM in one area having to do with the

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Speaker 1: First Amendment, with establishment of religion, free speech, and so forth.

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Speaker 1: So it's kind of hard to imagine him getting into

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Speaker 1: the nitty gritty of obstruction of justice, abuse of power,

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Speaker 1: things along those lines, Um, But I wouldn't rule anything out.

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Speaker 1: Secular as a very capable person, um, and despite his

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Speaker 1: performance last Sunday, he has normally thought of as a

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Speaker 1: very well spoken person. I think he was given an

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Speaker 1: assignment that may have been impossible to to square a

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Speaker 1: circle or to basically try to retract something that his

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Speaker 1: client had said explicitly, you're you're talking about how on

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Speaker 1: on Fox with Chris Wallace he contradicted himself. Yes, well,

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Speaker 1: he was basically saying the president is not being investigated,

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Speaker 1: which had two problems with it. First, there's no way

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Speaker 1: he can know exactly whether the president is being investigated

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Speaker 1: or not. And second, his client, the President had just

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Speaker 1: recently tweeted I am being investigated. So that was a

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Speaker 1: difficult undertaking. To try to prove the opposite of that

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Speaker 1: might be harder than being before the Supreme Court in

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Speaker 1: a in a to try to to do that. Now,

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Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit more about Trump's defense team.

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Speaker 1: As you mentioned, he's sort of out of place on

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Speaker 1: this team. It's continues to be led by New York

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Speaker 1: attorney Mark Casuits and Martin Dowd, Washington white collar attorney

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Speaker 1: telling John John dead sorry tell us about John Dowd.

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Speaker 1: John Dowd has been around Washington for a long time. Um.

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Speaker 1: He is well known, for example, uh for representing politicians.

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Speaker 1: One of his most famous clients was Senator McCain. When

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Speaker 1: McCain got wrapped up in what was known as the

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Speaker 1: Keating five, scandal way back late eighties early nineteen nineties.

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Speaker 1: Uh McCain was ultimately exonerated of the allegation that he

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Speaker 1: intervened with regulators on behalf of a campaign contributor. So

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Speaker 1: doubt has had clients like that. He's very well known

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Speaker 1: in Washington legal circles, and he is a kind of predictable,

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Speaker 1: understandable member of the team. Mark Caswitz is very well

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Speaker 1: known in New York legal circles, but does not have

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Speaker 1: deep Washington experience, does not have criminal law, white collar

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Speaker 1: defense experience to speak of, and so he's another kind

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Speaker 1: of curiosity all the there. You can completely understand why

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Speaker 1: Trump would pick him because he's been one of Trump's

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Speaker 1: main lawyers for many years representing Trump personally, and I

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Speaker 1: think there's probably just a lot of personal trust there.

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Speaker 1: And was Dowd brought in because there was a lot

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Speaker 1: of critique of Casuits that he was a New York lawyer,

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Speaker 1: that he really wasn't involved in this area, and that

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Speaker 1: he was only there because Trump trusted him. Yes, I

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Speaker 1: think it's very fair to to to surmise that Dowd

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Speaker 1: was added to to respond to those questions and criticisms

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Speaker 1: of Casuits. Who, by the way, in his own kind

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Speaker 1: of public debut as Trump's lawyer in this current scandal,

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Speaker 1: didn't do such a great job himself. He put out

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Speaker 1: an email statement that had a lot of typos in it,

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Speaker 1: um and was was rather aggressive in his in his

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Speaker 1: UH in person performance. UM. So, I think that this

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Speaker 1: team UH probably has a lot of work to do

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Speaker 1: in terms of getting their UH, getting themselves organized and

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Speaker 1: putting their best foot forward. Well, as you mentioned, it's

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Speaker 1: very difficult what what Secalo was saying. I mean, first

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Speaker 1: of all, they go back to what Comey said, which

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Speaker 1: was which was quite a while ago, that he knew

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Speaker 1: what was going on. And also, you know, people know

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Speaker 1: that you don't have to necessarily be told at the

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Speaker 1: beginning that you're the target of an investigation. That's exactly right.

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Speaker 1: And I think UH Seculo was basically sent out too

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Speaker 1: with the mission of trying to wave his arms so

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Speaker 1: vigorously that people would not pay attention to the president's tweet.

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Speaker 1: And he did a lot of arm waving and a

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Speaker 1: lot of speechifying, and in the end, Chris Wallace on

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Speaker 1: the Fox Show actually said, oh boy, this is so weird,

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Speaker 1: And that was really my reaction to this is quite

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Speaker 1: weird um and uh, quite ineffective for a broad audience.

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Speaker 1: But I think in fact you could guess that his

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Speaker 1: real audience was an audience of one his client, and

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Speaker 1: my guess is his client was probably satisfied with his performance.

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Speaker 1: So true. It's a great story, and it's on Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: business Week, and you can also get Bloomberg Business Week

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Speaker 1: to new revamped, fancy addition of Bloomberg Business Week on

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Speaker 1: the news stands. Thanks so much. That's Paul Barrett, Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: Business Week Editor,